Friday Aug 30, 2013

This is the 24th
edition of our WebLogic Community newsletter – thanks for all your
content & feedback! We keep tradition, as I not plan to damage my knee this year, we will host our Fusion Middleware Partner Community Reception at Oracle OpenWorld 2013 – Spaces are limited register asap!

If
you are planning to attend OOW, make sure you prepare your visit and
below you'll find some useful tips. Let us know if you like us to
arrange 1:1 meeting with the product management or sales team, to
discuss your large opportunities or projects. In combination with OOW
2013 we will also host our global WebLogic Partner Advisory Council IV,
if you are a WebLogic guru and would like to attend., please feel free to let us know.

Partners are key in Fusion Middleware, therefore we make the latest sales kit available to you at the WebLogic Community Workspace (WebLogic Community membership required).
The sales kits include the sales plays, cheat sheets, customer
presentations and marketing kits. Please handle the material in the
spirit of our partnership!

WebLogic
Server clusters form a loosely-federated group of managed servers that
provide a model for applications to leverage for achieving scalability,
load balancing, and failover. Each managed server manages its view of
what servers are in the cluster and its own cluster-wide view of the
JNDI tree. The cluster uses a messaging model for members of the cluster
to exchange the information required to keep the cluster in sync.
WebLogic Server supports two different cluster messaging protocols,
known as unicast and multicast. This blog entry describes the two
different cluster messaging protocols and makes recommendations around
selecting which protocol to use for all versions of WebLogic Server up
to and including WLS 12c (12.1.x).

WebLogic Server Clustering Fundamentals

Most
features of WebLogic Server clustering are targeted at providing
scalability, high availability, and failover capabilities to specific
application component types (e.g., web applications, EJBs, JMS). To
support these capabilities, WebLogic Server clustering provides some
infrastructure services upon which all of the other features rely. The
two most important services are: Read the full article here.

Wednesday Aug 28, 2013

Sounds cool, doesn’t it? Yet a bit academic - I agree. So why this
title? It is as precise as it gets. And it’s less 140 chars, so I can
even tweet it. Yet no worries, I’ll enjoy dissecting the headline for.
There are a number of important messages. To make it more readable I
will split it into three parts.

So let’s get to the topic right away (which by the way is precompilation).

To
prove it makes a real difference, I will show in part II how you can
measure the effect of precompilation since quite often people fail to do
so.

Later in the cool part, part III, we look at some exciting bells and whistles for web applications (Twitter Bootstrap framework).

Precompilation

Why would you precompile your application?Precompilation
isn’t really necessary to make an application work correctly. WebLogic
will compile necessary artifacts when they are needed. For example a JSP
page which is not precompiled will be compiled at the time it is
accessed.

Deploying an application without precompilation forces you to use lame excuses such as “It’s a bit slow right now, because it is running for the first time after deployment“.
I am sure you don’t want to be remembered for lame comments. Running
your applications without precompilation costs you time. And time is
expensive.

What is the difference between precompilation and compilation?Well,
every Java class has to be compiled before it is executed by the JVM.
The .java file is converted into a .class file. Other stuff, such as a
JSP page could be deployed as is. It will then be compiled by WebLogic. Read the full article here.

Tuesday Aug 27, 2013

The Oracle Database Appliance (ODA) is one of Oracle's "Engineered
Systems" - an implication of which is that you can't change the hardware
components at all. Therefore it is important that its specification
provided meets your requirements, and will do so for the expected
lifespan of the system.

I briefly described the networking for ODA X3-2 in an earlier earlier post.
In this one I will discuss the ODA's physical networking in more
detail, how you configure it, and its suitability for my customer in
this particular Proof of Concept (POC).

ODA X3-2 Physical Networking

Each of the servers in the ODA X3-2 has the following ethernet connections:

The Oracle Database Appliance (ODA) is one of Oracle's "Engineered
Systems" - an implication of which is that you can't change the hardware
components at all. Therefore it is important that its specification
provided meets your requirements, and will do so for the expected
lifespan of the system.

I briefly described the networking for ODA X3-2 in an earlier earlier post.
In this one I will discuss the ODA's physical networking in more
detail, how you configure it, and its suitability for my customer in
this particular Proof of Concept (POC).

ODA X3-2 Physical Networking

Each of the servers in the ODA X3-2 has the following ethernet connections:

Monday Aug 26, 2013

Well, just like all the best blog posts about new mobile phone models, today I bring you "Oracle Database Appliance X3-2 unboxing!"
Whilst technically this may not be the most interesting article in my
ODA POC series, we'll see what subtleties we can tease out from just
what's on the outside.

On the right you will see the ODA packaging
or, more precisely, the 3 separate boxes the it arrives in. In case you
needed any further convincing following my previous posts, the X3-2 is
two servers and one (or two) array(s) loosely connected together, not a
kind of 2 node blade system like the ODA v1.

Looking on the bright
side, at least no individual box is all that heavy - compare this to
something like an HP blade enclosure which is 10U tall and certainly not
a one person job to install in a rack without a fancy fork lift. Read the full article here.

Friday Aug 23, 2013

On April 3rd the new ODA X3-2 was released. Sadly I was sick from
April 1st on so I had to miss the launch, and I was so well prepared…
others had the scoop. Anyway, as an administrator that not only manages
databases this release is pretty exciting since it brings not only
virtualization but also WebLogic to ODA. This would make ODA a pretty
good appliance for some of my customers, so I did a little investigation
in the product.

This blogpost is the first result of that
investigation. My main focus was the WebLogic part of the box. The
questions that arose with me were either answered by documentation or by
product management. Obviously that doesn’t guarantee that I understood
everything correct I
left out references to documentation on purpose, it would be smart for
everyone interested in the product to hit the documentation thoroughly.

The most import slide in the slide deck I received about the ODA launch is this.

It
does some pretty smart claims that can be verified easily. The three
simplified statements call for some clarification. Here’s what my
questions were, plus the answers I found:

Simplified provisioning / install

Q: Can we test any of this without ODA?A: No,
although I was able to get a virtual ODA in a virtual box environment.
This is by no means supported and requires altering of the images that
Oracle sends you.Read the full article here.

Thursday Aug 22, 2013

In my last blog,
I wrote about Cloud deployment model choices and how Oracle Cloud
Application Foundation customers have choice between an on premise
private cloud or a public 3rd party cloud environment for the perfect
hybrid. Well, with the latest partnership announced between Oracle andMicrosoft, Oracle customers have one more deployment option with Microsoft Windows Azure.

So
as I was flying above the clouds on my weekend getaway passing through
Oracle and Microsoft headquarters, I thought I’d share more details on
how this partnership will benefit WebLogic customers.

As part of
this partnership, WebLogic customers will be able to use their existing
WebLogic licenses for cloud deployments on Windows Server Hyper-V and in
Windows Azure. Licensing will work in the same fashion that is
available today on Oracle Cloud. See more licensing details for Oracle
Software in the Cloud Computing Environment here.
WebLogic licenses on Windows Azure will work in the same manner.
Microsoft will also offer license and support for Java in Windows Azure.
Read the full article here.

A complete cloud
lifecycle management solution enabling you to quickly set up, manage,
and support enterprise clouds and traditional Oracle IT environments
from applications to disk.

Maximum return on IT management
investment through the best solutions for intelligent management of the
Oracle stack and engineered systems with real-time integration of
Oracle’s knowledge base with each customer environment.

Best service levels for traditional and cloud applications through business-driven application management.

Tuning

After installing and configuring
enterprise manager it might be beneficial to tune the environment. To
tune the agent, navigate to the${AGENT_HOME}/agent_inst/sysman/config
directory. Open the file emd.properties and edit the agentJavaDefines
property, set the memory parameters for the Java Virtual Machine to, for
example, Set extra tuning parameters for the Java Virtual Machine in
the s_jvm_options.opt file, for example: Read the full article here.

Tuesday Aug 20, 2013

Starting from July 4th - Oracle WebLogic Server 12c Essentials
exam is again live in production with a new set of questions and
measurement! Take the chance and prove you are a specialist in the
domain. The Oracle WebLogic Server 12c Implementation Specialist certification
(1Z0-599) is designed for individuals who possess a strong foundation
and expertise in selling and implementing Oracle WebLogic Server
solutions. The candidates should have hands on experience in installing,
administering, and configuring Oracle WebLogic Server 12c and its
components, including, Java Enterprise Edition (EE) Applications. The
certification covers topics such as: system architecture, deployment
& post-install configurations and implementation best practices.
This certification differentiates candidates in the marketplace by
providing a competitive edge through proven expertise. Up-to-date
training and field experience are recommended. This certification is
available to all candidates but is geared toward members of the Oracle
PartnerNetwork. OPN members earning this certification will be
recognized as OPN Certified Specialists. This certification qualifies as
competency criteria for the Oracle Cloud Application Foundation
Specialization. Contact: Register Now at Pearson VUE!

Currently,
Oracle Fusion Middleware does not support configuring Oracle Active
Data Guard for the database repositories that are a part of the Fusion
Middleware topology. However, Active Data Guard can be configured if
your custom applications are designed to leverage the technology.

Today this came up in a discussion with Simon Haslam
, and he didn’t hear from this support issue before. So it seems that
it is not that well know that Active Data Guard and Oracle Fusion
Middleware is not a supported combination.

This makes this blog
post a reminder from what is already in documentation (unless someone
can comment and tell me that currently in the quote is not so currently
anymore). Hope this helps.

Friday Aug 16, 2013

Markus Eisele Oracle ACE Director will run a Glassfish Training in
Munich. The training will include: installation, configuration, cluster
& high availability, development & deployment from applications
with NetBeans.

We
are at the dawn of a new age of information technology. The pace of
business change, and the need to simultaneously generate cost reduction
and drive innovation is stressing IT operating models as never before.
Traditional enterprise systems such as ERP, while critically important
as systems of record and in driving standardized processes and data,
cannot alone deliver the agility and innovation required. A new
enterprise systems framework is needed.

Oracle Fusion Middleware
is the leading business innovation platform for the enterprise and the
cloud. Using a layered approach with Oracle Fusion Middleware,
enterprises can leverage their existing enterprise investments while
offering new and unique capabilities that the Business requires. Oracle
Fusion Middleware products enable a layered approach today with Oracle
Applications and are also the foundation for next generation Oracle
Fusion Applications.

With over 120,000 Fusion Middleware
customers, and 80,000 Oracle Applications customers we are already
seeing many customers realize the benefits of a layered approach to
Enterprise Applications using Oracle Fusion Middleware. Many of these
customers are using Fusion Middleware in the context of Oracle
Applications today, to: